The US Department of State announced the establishment of the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP) on 4 April 2022.
In a statement, the Department said this was a key piece of Secretary Anthony Blinken’s modernization agenda.
In a social media post, Blinken said: "With partners around the world and across the US government, our newest bureau will carry on the Department of State's work to ensure the digital revolution happening around us serves our people, protects our interests and upholds our values."
The CDP bureau will address the national security challenges, economic opportunities and implications for US values associated with cyberspace, digital technologies and digital policy, according to the statement.
The CDP bureau is set to include three policy units which include international cyberspace security, international information and communications policy and digital freedom.
Opportunity ahead
The Department has huge international reach and this presents an opportunity, according to Jerich Beason, Capital One, Commercial Bank CISO.
Speaking to CS Hub, Beason said: “This bureau has a potential opportunity to establish closer alignment with our allies and the UN as it pertains to cyberspace given it is the newest domain for war. In many ways, we have figured out how we will operate or partner in land, sea and air domains but cyberspace operations are still fairly nebulous.”
Recently it has been reported that cyber-attacks and criminal activity has been widely used in the Russian offensive against Ukraine, which began in February 2022. Since then, the Biden Administration has warned several times that a cyber-attack against critical infrastructure in the US is likely and agencies outside of the US have sent out similar cautions.
Beason added that foreign policies in cyberspace are not as mature as we need them to be and to-date there are no widely accepted international norms.
“Perhaps we can even move toward a set of international agreements akin to the Geneva Convention but for cyberspace. The government is known to move slow and with bureau comes bureaucracy but I'm optimistic,” Beason said.
The bureau will be led by a Senate-confirmed Ambassador-at-Large. Starting on 4 April, Jennifer Bachus, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, is serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the CDP bureau.
Michele Markoff is serving as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Cyberspace Security, Stephen Anderson is serving as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Information and Communications Policy, and Blake Peterson is serving as Acting Digital Freedom Coordinator.